Arena View Point

[Divinestorm]

I thought I would quickly share my thought on the current state of Arena. (this is where half of you will stop reading)

For the other half, here we go. Protection Warriors currently hold too much utility according to alot of caster classes, namely Frost Mages QQing during certain tournaments. There is no doubt they hold a lot of utility but I do find it quite ridiculous that a a Frost Mage would complain about control. Namely being that Protections brethren tree's hold no way of staying out of complete control. (LRN2ROLLWITH Holy Paladin Nub)

The warrior class has never been complete without his healing companion, but to literally nail it down to a warrior using a partner with Dispels is an interesting take. A mage however requires their mass amounts of control to be able to survive. Absorb effects have also had an interesting change with mechanics, effecting mana regeneration for Retribution Paladins, Enhancement Shamans and Rage Generation from warriors. The Burning Crusade relied heavily on control as it is shown with Warlock, Warriors and Druid beings the higher tiers classes. Control is still viable but after watching the Europe tournament, RMP vs HPal/DK/War, straight out zerging seems just as viable with cleanses at their disposal.

Blizzard has recognised the amount of Crowd Control that cannot be avoided by comps without a Dispel. They have addressed this issue and may introduce a Dispel Magic mechanic to every healing class in the game. Source: http://www.wowhead.com/?guide=cataclysm&spells#spells

According to Blizzard Healing and Damage Ratios are to high for the amount of health present.

Q. If damage and healing is too much per health ratio, then why don't you have battlegrounds/arenas give a -30% damage/healing debuff?
A. We have been talking about solutions like that. It might feel a bit awkward, but it might also solve the problem and maybe it's okay in the last season before an expansion to experiment a little bit.
I would have to agree, however the idea that they presented will increase the time arena matches take , giving drain teams an advantage. Certain Magic Effects would have to be reduced as well.

Armor Penetration is far too overpowered versus other plate wearers. A warrior will counter any plate wearer easily due to the amount of armor pen he stacks. Higher ranking arms warriors are however being forced to stack strength due to the amount of spell teams found in the higher brackets. Absorb effects also being taken into account, the extra rage helps out a lot. Removing Armor Penetration from the game and increasing the effectiveness of armor versus spell caster would be an extreme change, however that is what they're choosing to do in Cataclysm. Allowing Spell Penetration to penetrate a certain amount of the absorb effect on a target would also be a nice change, to allow warriors to gain a bit of rage, and allow mana regeneration talents to work as per normal.

A Restoration Druids heals seem to also be at the bottom of the pack now due to the amount of Dispel other comp can pass out. Enh/Mage/Dpriest counters druids disgustingly, Druids are hardly viable for 3's. However for 2's they seem to do quite well, especially paired with a UA warlock.

My Opinions are Biased, that I cannot help. All I can say is, Rated Battlegrounds sound real good to me.

Thanks for reading.

[Proletariat]

Problem with Prot Wars isn't necessarily their "utility". I get that it's fun to have Group Spell Reflect and the stuns. What is a problem is how hard they hit while being able to lock down a target so effectively. The prot talents like Conc Blow and Shockwave receive their damage scaling from what Blizz predicted would be the level of AP tanking warriors would have in PvE Prot gear. If you put them in Arena sets what you get is nifty utility as well as substantial amounts of damage. I don't have a problem with Blizz trying to make other specs viable for Arena. People who are totally devoted to their non-optimal specs should be able to have fun in Arena and perform decently. However, Prot Wars are a bit past that point, and changing Warbringer doesn't really address the problem.

ArP should be changed, I agree. I can't wait for Cata and for more details on what Blizz proposes exactly.

Druids are the worst healers atm because they are the worst at healing burst damage. Simple as that. Part of it has to do with dispels like you mentioned.

I'm really skeptical about the rated BG idea, simply cause BGs right now are probably the worst aspect of this game for me. The new LFG restored my faith in Blizz devs a bit tho, I guess we'll see how well this idea pans out.

[lilbandit]

TL;DR - arenas are unbalanaced, rated BGs will be good.

Don't mean to be rude, but we all know this.

edit: I actually did read your whole post, just summarising for others.

[Casualty]

To say that you want the entire spectrum of the 3's bracket to be more "balanced" is pretty funny.

They're going to be counter comps for teams pretty much in all cases unless you ran protwar / hunter / pally in S7.

On another note I don't see any high rated Warrior that is socketing all STR now because of the spell cleaves. If you do the math correctly anything above 6.2k armor is better to stack arpn on it. The only reason you probably see Warriors stacking so much STR is because they are all going mace now which is by far the best to go. I went mace and gained about 500 AP and I still do the same amount of damage if not a little more on plate. The only downside....wait there isn't I also wreck casters more so now too.

If you want to play something more balanced step up to the 5s bracket but even then you will have counters. Although counters are easier to handle since you can do oh so many more things to out play the other team.